Behind
the Arab-Israelconflict a yawning ideological dichotomy separates
Zionists and Arab Palestinian nationalists, each adopting a divergent
historical interpretation of the socio-political landscape in pre-1918
Palestine.

Zionists
assert that prior to their immigration, Palestine
was desolate and under-populated and that muchof
the arable land in the plains remained untilled while other areas were
malarial swamp. With backbreaking labour and overcoming malarial disease
they started to drain the swamps and convert abandoned land to being
highly productive.

In
contrast Arab Palestinian nationalists assert:

Palestinewas
not desolate and without population;

Indigenous
Arabs occupied and worked the land from time immemorial;

Jewish
immigration and land purchases pushed Arab fellahin off the land and
forced them to move to the towns where they werecompelled to change their lifestyles and find alternative
employment if they were so able.

Neither
scenario is devoid of some element of truth.

Geography,
politics and demographics of the region all undoubtedly shaped the outcome
of the struggle being played out between the opposing Jewish and Arab
interests but other influences operating internationally influenced the
local scene.

In
addition, cultural differences between Jews and Arabs began to play a
highly significant role in generating the animus and hostility which
characterised the emerging political landscape.

To
enable readers to weigh and evaluate the respective claims and
counterclaims, a clearer understanding of the various factors which bear
on their validity is an essential prerequisite, and they are here
summarised:

Settled
Population Affected by Topography and Marauders

The
coastal plains being ipso facto vulnerable to marauding Bedouin
tribes were more or less desolate and unproductive:

*The Northern coastal plain - was swamp-like and
malaria-ridden as was the land around the Hula lake and the
Lake
of
Galilee
;

*The Southern coastal plains - were inundated with sand dunes

*To the extent that such land was capable of being cultivated, wild
marauding Bedouin tribes present in the area discouraged any permanent
rural settlement or agricultural development.

As
a consequence:

*Arab urban and rural settlements were to be found mainly in the
hill country west of the Jordan River in Judea and
Samaria
and parts of the
Galilee
, avoiding the coastal plain.

*Jews, prior to acquiring and developing the barren coastal plains,
had a significant urban presence in and around
Jerusalem
, Tiberias, Safad and
Jaffa
and in other smaller towns.

This
subject is examined in greater detail in Section
1 below

Aside
from these conditions there were a number of other factors external to
Palestine
which also contributed to the complex dynamics of the region.

Egyptian
Population Migrations into
Palestine–
increased the indigenous Arab population beyond its natural birth rate.

The
migrants included:

*those fleeing from compulsory military service 1839 –
1849 in
the Egyptian army;

*deserters from the Egyptian army following its the withdrawal from
Palestine
after a ten year military occupation; and

*those seeking to avoid forced labour in the construction of the
Suez Canal
1861-1871.

Section 2 below expands this point

ForeignDiplomatic Political and Economic Pressure
on Ottoman Independence

The Ottoman government, (seated at the ‘Sublime Porte’ or entry
to the Sultan’s Palace in Constantinople - now Istanbul) referred to by
Europeans as the ‘Porte’, was subject to strong European pressure and
influence. This was exerted through:

*exploitation of the ‘Capitulations’ – provisions in
international agreements between European states and the Ottoman
government granting trade preferences and customs concessions – extended
well beyond their originally intended scope. The term ‘Capitulations’
is derived from the Italian ‘capitula’ meaning a chapter or
paragraph in the agreement
(seeSection 3.abelow); and

*restructuring the financial loan arrangements for the repayment of
the enormous Ottoman debts owed to the Europeans incurred by
the former in fighting the Crimean War and the suppressing of ethnic
uprisings in the Empire. (Section 3.b)

European
Political and Financial Pressure Induced Changes in Ottoman Internal
Policy

These
changes included

*the opening of its domestic markets to foreign investment in
general;

*reform of its land ownership, registration and land taxation
systems. (Section 3.c.ii); and

all
of which caused changes in the loci centres of power of the
Palestinian Arab elites’ and brought social and economic consequences in
the welfare of the fellah (See Section 4. below)

Internal Changes within the
Ottoman Empire
Created Further Opportunities for European Intrusion.

These changes resulted in Non-Ottoman citizens beingpermitted to acquire land freely without obtaining a special
permit. This stimulated Christian religious institutions to acquire
property in the
Holy Land
(see Section 5.a). Religious European and Yemenite Jews were also
drawn to return to Eretz Yisrael by their ethnic, cultural and religious
roots and their belief of an immanent messianic appearance (see Section
5.b).

However,
the most powerful force leading to a Jewish return to Eretz Yisrael lay in
European anti-Semitism. In
Rumania
and
Russia
, this was overtly violent (pogroms) and in Western Europe,
notwithstanding the removal of legal obstacles to Jewish assimilation in
France
and
Germany
, was covert and discriminatory; in the Dreyfus affair there was
even a conspiracy.

These
latter events and Jewish attempts to convert them into a positive force
supporting Jewish nationalism in the Zionist movement are examined in Chapter
V.

1.
General Topography and Population

Several
adverse characteristics prevailing in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries shaped the economic and social conditions in the
Eastern Mediterranean
region: under-population, marauding Bedouin clans, poverty, malarial
sickness and lack of investment in efficient and scientific land
utilisation.

The
many descriptions of the region provided by travellers and foreign consuls
at the time were generally not grounded on hard data or academic research.
They failed to take into consideration that conditions which prevailed in
some parts of
Palestine
did not pertain in others. In examining its economic and political
development,
Palestine
must be divided into

*four longitudinal regions paralleling the Mediterranean Sea: (i)
the coastal plain, (ii) the hilly region (the Negev and the south) (iii)
Judea and
Samaria
in the central region and (iv) the
Galilee
in the north;

*the Jordan Valley which lies to the east of the Galilee and
includes the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee (Tiberias) which forms part
of the Great Rift Valley;

These
regions differed from one another in respect of the ethnic origin,
population growth and decline, agricultural development and economic
vitality.

*To the extent that land in the coastal and other plains was capable
of being cultivated, wild marauding Bedouin tribes present in these areas
discouraged any permanent rural settlement or agricultural development.
Consequently the lower flat lying areas were more or less desolate and
unproductive. In addition:

othe Northern and central coastal plains were swamp-like and
malaria-ridden as was the land around the Hula lake and the
Lake
of
Galilee
;

othe Southern coastal plains were inundated with sand dunes;

*Consequently, Arab urban and rural settlements tended to avoid the
coastal plains and were to be found mainly in the hill country west of the
Jordan River in Judea and
Samaria
and parts of the
Galilee
,

*Jews, prior to acquiring and developing the barren coastal plains,
had a significant urban presence in and around
Jerusalem
,
Hebron
, Tiberias, Safad and Jaffa
and
in other smaller towns.

a.
The Land and Its Indigenous Rural Population

For
many centuries, travellers to
Palestine
described it as sparsely populated, poorly cultivated and widely neglected
– an expanse of eroded hills, sandy deserts and malarial marshes.
European consuls located in
Jerusalem
and
Cairo
during the 18th and 19th centuries confirmed these
opinions.

Mark Twain, who had visited the
Holy land
in 1867, described it as

“[a]
desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to
weeds - a silent mournful expanse... Desolation is here that not even
imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action… We never saw a
human being on the whole route…there was hardly a tree or a shrub
anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of the
worthless soil, had almost deserted the country” (Twain “Innocents
Abroad” cited in Bard Myths and FactsAICE
2001, p. 30)

The
Report of the 1937 Palestine Royal Commission quotes what it believed to
be a truthful and unbiased description of the Maritime Plain as it existed
in 1913:

”The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track
suitable for transport by camels and carts...no orange groves, orchards or
vineyards were to be seen until one
reached [the Jewish village of] Yabna [Yavne]....Houses were all of mud.
No windows were anywhere to be seen....The ploughs used were of
wood....The yields were very poor....The sanitary conditions in the
village were horrible. Schools did not exist....The western part, towards
the sea, was almost a desert. . . . The villages in this area were few and
thinly populated. Many ruins of villages were scattered over the area, as
owing to the prevalence of malaria, many villages were deserted by their
inhabitants”. (Cmd. 5479 p. 233)

The Report also drew on contemporary descriptions of the economic
situation in
Palestine
, written in the 1830s and supplied to the Commission by Lewis French,

the
British Director of Development:

We found it inhabited by fellahin who lived in mud hovels and suffered
severely from the prevalent malaria.... Large areas...were uncultivated...
The fellahin, if not themselves cattle thieves, were always ready to
harbour these and other criminals. The individual plots...changed hands
annually. There was little public security, and the fellahin's lot was an
alternation of pillage and blackmail by their neighbours, the Bedouin”.
(Cmd. 5479 pp. 259-260)

Meyer
Levin, the American writer (1905 -1981) recounts in “My Search” that
it was impossible to travel directly northwards from Tel Aviv to Netanya,
some
25 km
away without deviating a considerable distance inland because of the
intervening marshland. The present-day route of the “old” Tel Aviv –
Haifa
road still reflects this.

Derived from the reports of foreign travellers and early settlers
(Oliphant), cartographers (Van de Velde), and foreign exploratory
expeditions (Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF)), Arie Avneri, in a detailed
study provides a description of the topographical and demographic
conditions prevailing in the various regions of
Palestine
immediately prior to Jewish settlement.

For
example, he notes the fertility of the soil but the sparseness of
population and lack of agricultural development in the valleys of the
Hula, Kinorot, and the Kishon, owing to their marshy and malarial
conditions.

In
the valleys of Beit-Shean, Jezreel, and Zevulun, located on the trade
routes and where permanent human habitation was possible, Bedouin raids on
the settlements - especially in drought years - discouraged any permanent
Arab settlement.

Mount Carmel
was also waste land. Development was ruined by foreign and local wars and
its western slope was malaria ridden, all of which contributed to the
abandonment of seventeen villages before Jewish settlers arrived in 1882
(Avnieri pp 49-50).

The
coastal area of Samaria (Shomron) starting at the foot of Mount Carmel and
stretching south to the Sharon Plain was in a state of desolation and
completely ravaged after the military campaigns of Napoleon and Ibrahim
Pasha of Egypt (see Section 2 below).

The
coastal
Sharon
Plain
was poorly cultivated owing to the sandy nature of the soil and marshlands
created by the
Alexandra
River
and further south by sand dunes. Those villages which did exist, described
in 1874 by C.R.Condor, were miserable and half in ruins, the villagers
downtrodden and browbeaten by money–thirsty absentee landlords (Avneiri
p.53).

The
Mountain Regions were varied in their population. Parts around Tulkarm
were relatively well populated, providing a refuge from malaria and
protection against Bedouin raiders. Nevertheless, internal feuds between
village clans caused many villages to be destroyed, although their
inhabitants tended to remain in the area. The lack of security, however,
inhibited the fellahin from investing much effort in improving the
soil conditions.

Villages lower down the mountain and closer to the sea, such as Auja,
Sidna Ali, Ramadan, Kabani and Hadera, were scattered and thinly
populated, because of
the sandy soil, punctuated by swampy stretches.

Southern
Judea and the
Negev
, although not plagued by malaria, were no better for agricultural use or
permanent settlement. These regions lacked rain and were frequently
drought ridden, and the soil was sandy, being often invaded by sand dunes.

By
way of contrast,
Gaza
in 1886 was a town with a population of some 20,000 inhabitants (but see
section 2 as to their place of origin). Its people were poor and lived
mostly from trade with the Egyptians. In the narrow strip between the
coastal sands and desert interior, some fellahin were found to be
growing fruit, watermelons and vegetables.

b.
Lack of Security for Persons and Property

During
the first three decades of the 19th century,
Palestine
, like the remainder of the
Ottoman Empire
, was in a general state of decline and stagnation.
Despite the ten years
of Egyptian military occupation of Palestine between 1831-1841 which
brought in its wake significant Egyptian migration (see section 2 below),
the total indigenous population of the area did not exceed 250,000.

Under
Ottoman rule the Arab male fellahin were extremely insecure both in
their person and economically, being eligible both for military
conscription while at the same time suffering Egyptian and Bedouin
incursions into their homesteads.

Bedouin terror prevented any significant permanent settlement in the
principal plains of Palestine - the coastal plain and the Plain of
Esdraelon - and compelled the Arab fellahin to retreat to the hill
country of Judea and Samaria, which was more secure but less productive.

“According
to Turkish registration books from 1596, it seems that the [coastal plain]
served as home to Bedouins (Arab nomads) and Turkish and Kurdish nomads.
In the eighteenth century, according to tradition, the amir (chief) of the
Hawara Bedouins, who hailed from Bilad Hareth …in Eastern trans-
Jordan
, occupied part of the coastal plain by force. Hawara Bedouins did not
cultivate the land; rather they occupied themselves with brigandage and
inter-tribal wars. The outcome of their predatory activities was that Wadi
Hawarith was described in the nineteenth century as abandoned, swampy, and
malaria-ridden and that its passage was dangerous. The lands of the Wadi
were described by the Ottoman governor of the
Jerusalem
region (1906-7) as abandoned lands that were sparsely inhabited by
Bedouins”…

“Thus
only a small part of the country was being used for agriculture. The
towns of
Palestine
at the beginning of the last [19th] century are best defined as
large villages each built on a small area and possessing a limited
economic base and a small population of up to
10,000”

Even
by 1895, after the rural population had descended from part of the hilly
areas and had begun to settle in plains, only ten per cent
of the total area of Palestine was under cultivation, (Kark
1983 p. 189) notwithstanding that Arab urban entrepreneurs and
absentee landlords had begun to assemble large tracts of land for resale,
following the Ottoman land reform legislation (see section 3.c.ii. below).

c. Fellah’s
Economic Situation

Economically,
the fellah was generally in a state of chronic poverty and
indebtedness to his absentee landlord, seed suppliers and money lenders,
owing to a number of interrelated causes: poor soil, lack of water,
poor means of communication with the towns, unsuitable marketing
arrangements, frequent crop season failures, and an antiquated land
system. Even before the first modern Jewish settlement, established in
1855, Palestinian Arab society was already socially fragmented between the
peasantry and landowning interests. This became exacerbated after the
Ottoman land reform in 1858.

(Haim
Gerber, The Social Origins of the Modern Middle East, Lynne
Rienner, London, 1987, p.75 (‘Gerber)).

Thus,
while
Palestine
as a whole cannot be said to have been desolate and without population as
claimed by the Zionists, its people were certainly not thriving. In the
hilly areas, the Arab population, while not poverty stricken, was barely
self-sustaining. In the plains and the valleys the travellers’
descriptions were a true reflection of
the situation - vast desolate
expanses devoid of permanent population, malaria infested and subject to
the uncontrolled power of the nomadic Bedouin.

Aside
from these environmental conditions there were a number of other factors
that also contributed to the complex dynamics of the region.

2.
Egyptian Population Migrations into
Palestine

Palestinian
Arabs have long argued that they have been indigenous to the area for
generations- indeed some claim from time immemorial. This may be true for
a segment of the population living in the hill country but in the
remainder of
Palestine
, the reality is otherwise: there were considerable Egyptian and other
Arab
population movements into and out of
Palestine
taking place.

The
indigenous population of the plains, such as it was, was migratory in
character. In addition to the insecurity created by marauders, the
environmental, physical economic conditions of the area were hard. Fellahin
would come, settle for a short time and move on when living conditions
became intolerable. In particular, other than in the hills, rural
settlement was threatened by Turkoman devastation. However the Arab
population increased beyond its natural birth rate due to significant
migration into
Palestine
from
Egypt
fleeing from compulsory military service 1839 – 1849 or forced labour on
the
Suez Canal
construction 1858-1869.

a.Inward
Arab Settlement of
Palestine
pre 1918

Inward
migratory settlement came from both Ottoman (Turkish) and Egyptian
sources:

i.Ottoman
Grant of Asylum to Muslim Refugees

The
Ottomans granted asylum to Moslem refugees fleeing from their homelands
for political and religious reasons:

*After the French conquest of
Algeria
in 1830, many Algerians settled in Lower and
Upper Galilee
. This region also attracted other immigrant Moslem Arabs from
Damascus
, and Kurds from
Syria
;

*In 1878, the Ottomans permitted Circassian refugees fleeing from
Christian-Russian rule in the
Caucasus
to settle in cis- and trans-Jordan;

*Turkoman tribes from the mountains of
Iraq
were allowed ultimately to settle on the slopes of
Mount Carmel
;

*In 1908, Arabs from
Yemen
settled in
Jaffa
.

ii.
Egyptian Émigrés

One
of the most important Arab migrations into
Palestine
came from
Egypt
during the early and min-nineteenth century.

*Egyptian
Army Conscription

oMuhammad Ali, (aka Mehemet Ali) the Ottoman viceroy of
Egypt
between 1805-1849, instituted a number of administrative reforms within
his territory. Most significantly he established a standing army by means
of conscription in 1829. As a consequence, many Egyptian peasants fled to
Palestine
to avoid such service. This was to be of little avail, because Ali’s
son, Ibrahim Pasha, invaded and occupied
Palestine
between 1831-1841 and they again came under his control. During this
period he ‘imported’ more Egyptian labourers into
Palestine
in addition to those who were already there.

oUltimately, Ottoman forces supported by the European powers –
especially
Britain
- forced Ibrahim Pasha to withdraw. In the process,
however, his army
suffered considerable desertion from its ranks, and those who escaped
remained in
Palestine
, hiding in small settlements. British intelligence estimated that the
number of troops reaching
Cairo
in the withdrawal approximated some 33,000, compared with 125,000 before
the retreat, leaving 92,000 unaccounted for.

o In the 1860’s over 1.5 million Egyptian labourers were
conscripted for the construction of the
Suez Canal
, of whom 120,000 died in the process. This, too, may also have created an
impetus to flee
Egypt
and to settle in
Palestine
. (Arieh L. Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession Jewish Land-
Settlement and the Arabs 1878-1948, Yad Tabenkin, Efal, Israel,
Herzl Press, New York 1982 (hereinafter ‘Avneri’);
Interview Prof. David Grossman 28.07.08)

*Employment
Opportunities on Public Works ProjectsInward
migration to
Palestine
was also stimulated by new employment opportunities. The Ottoman
government commenced railway, road and port construction projects in
Palestine
, most of which was financed from
Europe
. These works created increased commercial traffic through the ports of
Jaffa
and
Haifa
and the general economic boom that attracted Arab labour from
Egypt
,
Syria
and Trans-Jordan, as well as the indigenous Palestinian fellah.

Egyptian
settlers particularly were scattered among many urban and rural points,
appropriating large tracts of land and lending variety and numbers to
the
existing population. The Ghawarna and Arab ez-ZubeidBedouintribes
and other Egyptian immigrants settled in the Hula (near the Sea of
Galilee) and
Beit-Sheaan
Valleys
; members of the Arab el-Ufi and ed-Damair tribes settled respectively in
Wadi Hawarith (near Tulkarm) and in the vicinity of Hadera; while
other Egyptian migrants settled in and around
Jaffa
.

The
assimilation of the Egyptians with the indigenous Arab population was a
drawn-out process. After his visit to
Palestine
in 1917, Philip Baldensperger relates that the existing population of
Jaffa
, although essentially Arab, contained at least twenty five different
nationalities, most of them Palestinian and Egyptian Arabs (Avneri
p.14).

Although
Arab migration into
Palestine
increased, the total Arab population in the nineteenth century rose only
slightly, because of internecine strife leading to internal instability
which caused significant emigration:

*along the ridge of Mount Carmel seventeen Druse villages were
destroyed in the chaos which followed in the wake of the Egyptian retreat
from
Palestine
;

*during the late 1830’s, 1860’s and 1870’s, Bedouins ousted
fellahin from the Jordan Valley, the Sharon Plain, Beit Shean
and the Jezreel Valley,
leaving the land desolate and uncultivated; (Avneri,
pp 20-22)

*in the
Hebron
region during the late 1890’s, between the Bedouin ed-Dulam and fellahin
of Yatta village.

The
nature and extent of Bedouin attacks have been discussed earlier and they
were a prime factor in creating outward migration

iii
Arab emigration to North and South America
Palestineexperienced
significant Arab emigration by those who perceived a better life in
the
New World
. Avneri quotes Arthur Ruppin, a contemporary sociologist, as
stating:

There
is emigration from the Christian districts, such as
Bethlehem
, Beit-Jala and Ramallah to North and South America, even though in
smaller numbers than in
Lebanon
…. The American Consul in Jerusalem (Daily Consular Trade Reports
6-6-14) estimates the emigration from the Jerusalem District at 3000
annually, of whom 30% are Christians, 35% Moslems and 35% Jews. Thus from
the Jerusalem District alone, 2000 Arabs emigrated annually (pp. 25-26)

A
similar population exodus occurred from the north of
Palestine
in the area of Safed.

iv.
Escapees from Turkish Army Conscription

During
World War I many young Arab men fled from
Palestine
in order to evade Turkish military conscription.

In
addition to those fleeing from conscription, the Ottoman central military
authorities concluded that the presence of Arabs and Jews in coastal
plains constituted a security threat. However the regional military
commander applied a discriminatory policy of expulsion. Arabs were left
undisturbed. Jews
on the other hand were expelled from the port areas of
Jaffa
and
Haifa
. But for the intervention of the German government, they would also have
been expelled from the coastal lands which they had developed
agriculturally.
(see Isaiah
Friedman
, Germany,
Turkey
and Zionism 1897-1918, Clarendon Press,
Oxford
, 1977,pp.---)

Thus, in summary and contrary to contemporary Palestinian claims, a
very large percentage of Arab settlers in
Palestine
were neither indigenous nor had they worked the land from time immemorial.
Like the Jews, they too, were immigrants who settled only a generation or
two prior to the start of significant Jewish immigration.

*In
the wider arena of international power politics a new dimension emerged,
in the form of European political, economic and commercial penetration
into the Ottoman domain. This arose from three sources:(a) the
Capitulations, (b) Ottoman debt burden following the Crimean War, (c)
Legislative reforms necessitated by the debt burden and (d) European
‘aid’ extended to support, maintain and modernise the Ottoman
Government.

a.The
‘Capitulations’

*Origin

Although
Christian-European interface with the Arabs in relation to
Palestine
found its nemesis in the Crusades, and Arab military expansion into Europe
reached its watershed with the Ottoman defeat in the Battle of Vienna in
1683, the
Ottoman Empire
never presented itself as monolithic and impenetrable to European
influence. However, after the European victory, the Ottomans found
it expedient to enter into agreements with various European states (
France
leading the way), granting them preferential trading privileges, and
exemptions in respect of excise and customs duties expressed in the
various Capitulations.

*Personal
Jurisdiction of Non-Ottoman Subjects

Today,
sovereignty is primarily linked to territory but a connection also exists
between the sovereign or state on the one hand, and the subject on the
other, whereby the latter, if found to be within the jurisdiction of a
foreign sovereign or state, could then and still can today, claim in times
of danger or personal distress, the extraterritorial protection of his own
sovereign or state. The Capitulations therefore also included provisions
in which the Ottoman government conceded power to the foreign states to
safeguard the interests of their respective subjects. Such protection
enabled foreign diplomats, consular officials and non-Muslim merchants to
reside in the
Ottoman Empire
indefinitely without becoming either subjects of the Sultan and/or falling
under his jurisdiction.

*Foreign
Subjects Exempted from Ottoman Local Laws

The
Capitulations also contained exemptions from the application of
considerable Ottoman legislation to foreign subjects engaged in trade who
resided within the Ottoman jurisdiction. Such exemptions included
liability to pay Ottoman poll taxes, bearing the cost and inconvenience of
billeting Ottoman troops, and conscription from serving in the Ottoman
armed forces as well as other financial impositions.

The European powers pressured the Ottomans into extending these privileges
to non-Muslim middlemen (dragomans) and many others who could in any way
be associated with foreign trade, such as currency changers,
European-Arabic translators, warehousemen, artisans and even shopkeepers.

*European
Extension of the Scope and Exploitation of the Capitulations

In
the course of the nineteenth century the abuse of the Capitulations became
so rampant that European protection could even be bought as a commodity,
and Ottoman deeds of appointment (berati) as dragoman virtually
became transferable. The privileges acquired by non-Islamic non-Ottoman
subjects were extended to the establishment of foreign banks, post offices
and commercial houses, which took full advantage of Turkish weakness. In
contrast, the foreign consuls became more powerful, each vying with the
other in trying to advance the interests of their respective States.

*Foreign
Dhimmis (Non Muslims) Also Benefited

The
foreign consular exploitation of the capitulations also enabled foreign dhimmis
to avoid the indignities which they would otherwise have had to suffer had
they been Ottoman subjects. Although non-Muslim Christians and Jews were
in Islamic eyes treated as inferior persons, they could nevertheless
acquire, if they were non-Ottoman subjects, a degree of consular
protection against Ottoman autocracy greater than the Sultan’s own Islamic
subjects could achieve for themselves. This could not but engender
disaffection between the newly arrived foreign immigrant Jews on the one
hand, and the Arab effendis and fellahin on the other hand, with
whom they were in contact.

b. Ottoman Foreign Debt Burden and
the Costs of Ethnic Uprising in the Empire

During the Crimean War (1853-1856) and for the nineteen years following,
the Ottomans incurred heavy foreign indebtedness, which enabled the
European states and their consular representatives to exert greater
political pressure in favour of the non-Ottoman nationals under their
protection. The first foreign loan,
contracted in 1854, created a degree
of indebtedness which enabled the Western powers to exercise only a
limited influence on Ottoman internal affairs.
However, from 1863 onwards,
debts accumulated and snowballed, so that by 1875 the Empire was bankrupt.
In 1876 financial matters were made worse
by the uprising of ethnic
Bulgarians against Ottoman sovereignty and the involvement of
Russia
in the process (Russo-Turkish War 1977-78).

Although the uprising was ultimately suppressed with heavy loss of life,
ethnic opposition to Ottoman rule was to make the Ottoman government very
sensitive to the concentration of ethnic minority groups within the Empire
generally and was to influence its future policy regarding the settlement
in
Palestine
of individual Jews and their supportive political and financial
organisations.

This
notwithstanding, the Ottoman need to repay its European-owed debts still
demanded a restructuring of its governmental and financial administration.
The latter was achieved by the establishment of the Ottoman Public Debt
Administration in 1881 which took control over state revenues which
benefited, to some degree, by the sale of public lands to sectarian
interests, both Christian and Jewish.

The
Ottomans found themselves in a cleft stick however. On the one hand, the
reorganisation of the public debt management brought them some financial
stability but, on the other, the process of reform allowed the European
states and their diplomatic and consular representatives to exercise a
degree of influence and pressure on Ottoman internal policy that would
have been unthinkable a decade or two earlier.

Thus European foreign consuls acquired further leverage to extend legal
protection and privileges which hitherto had not been available to their
foreign protégés resident in the Ottoman Empire. Unsurprisingly, Jewish
and other non-Muslim immigrants arriving in
Palestine
preferred to retain their original foreign nationalities and claimed
protection from the various foreign consuls against the arbitrary
treatment meted out by Ottoman officialdom.

Such
preference could not have created anything but resentment among the
Islamic urban poor and middle class and among the rural fellahin.
The exploitation of the 1858 Ottoman land legislation (subsection
c.ii. below) by non-Ottoman nationals in their moves to acquire
land in
Palestine
could only have added to this resentment.

c.
Ottoman Legislative Reforms Necessitated by Debt

i.
Non-Ottoman Subjects Gain Equality with Ottomans

The
Capitulations, coupled with the financial consequences of the Crimean War
coerced the Ottoman government into introducing important reforms designed
to gain the support of its European Allies. Published on the eve of the
1856 Paris Peace Conference, the Hatt-i Humayun (Imperial Rescript)
granted to foreign Christians and other non-Muslims rights equal to those
of its Muslims subjects in respect of protection of their persons and
property, freedom of worship, and provision of education for children of
all religious communities.

Also
included in the 1856 legislation was permission, at least theoretically,
for foreigners to acquire land in their own names without their having to
obtain a special firman from the Sultan. For Jewish would-be
purchasers, however, there were still other problems to be overcome, as
will be shown below.

The
point being made at this juncture is the fact that Jewish non-Ottoman
subjects resident within the Ottoman Empire generally and
Palestine
in particular, received extensive diplomatic protection from the vagaries
of local Ottoman officialdom, a fact which impacted on an expanding Jewish
land acquisition policy. To mitigate the effects of foreign interference
in internal Ottoman Affairs and to ‘encourage’ permanent settlers to
renounce their foreign protective status, the Ottoman Nationality Law was
enacted in 1869, which created a common Ottoman citizenship, irrespective
of religious or ethnic divides.

Motivated
by the need to open up the Empire to foreign investment in order to
overcome its financial crisis, the Ottoman government introduced
significant reforms in relation to land, its registration, title holding,
disposition, benefits and burdens, the totality of which had a major
influence upon the redistribution, ownership and occupancy of rural land.

oCustomary
Rights in LandPrior
to the introduction of the
Ottoman
Land
reform legislation, ownership of land evidenced by registration of
legal title in government records or written agreements was less important
than its physical occupation and cultivation.

*Peasants – fellahin - could acquire ‘ownership’ to
uncultivated land, nominally owned by the State, if they planted and took
its produce for two consecutive years.

*They could also acquire rights of pasturage on communally
controlled ‘musha’ land located close to the village land and
used in common.

From
the peasant’s perspective, musha tenure gave him neither
incentive to work the land to the best of his ability nor to invest in it.
While the system may have encouraged village independence, it also
contributed to village disharmony.

“It
was common practice for the urban landowning agent, who often functioned
as the intermediary between the landowner and the peasantry, to move
tenants or other agricultural labourers from plot to plot within a larger
area of land so to prevent the fellah from claiming legal title on
any particular parcel of land….

Not
surprisingly, moving a peasant from one plot to another after every
growing season disadvantaged him: it did little to engender a sense of
economic security; it created harsh local jealousies over who received the
most of often meagre amounts of good and mediocre land; it caused the
peasant to extract what he could from his land and, antithetically,
dissuaded him from upgrading a land area with physical (weeding,
terracing, manuring) investment because the land would become someone
else's during the next growing season. …

Already
strained by hamula or clan conflicts, a village regularly withstood
periods of uneasiness each time unequal village lands were redistributed.
Land disputes, encroachment on another's land, and uprooting of trees were
not uncommon where cultivable lands were sparse and the local village
population increased over time.”
Kenneth W. Stein, "One Hundred Years of Social Change: The
Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem” in Laurence J.
Silberstein (ed) “New Perspectives on Israeli History: The Early
years of the State” New York University Press, 1991 pp. 57-81
(hereinafter “Stein”)

In
1858, the Ottoman Government introduced significant land reform
legislation in order to help discharge its foreign debts and to finance an
ever
growing bureaucratic government. This was to be achieved by (i)
attracting foreign investment in land development, (ii) increasing central
government income from land transfer fees and (iii) imposing higher
taxation on both existing worked arable land and from bringing waste land
into cultivation.
Failure to pay the tax assessed on the land could result
in its being forfeited and resold by public auction.

The legislation provided, inter alia, for:

*dissolution of the communal musha ‘ownership’ of village
lands and its redistribution among villagers into registered plots in
accordance with a cadastral survey;

*holding of kushans, or title deeds as evidence of ownership
or title to the land – independently and distinct from its rights of
occupation;

*the acquisition of land - other than by purchase or inheritance -
by adverse possession (i.e. possession without objection from any
other owner claiming valid title) for a period of ten years;

*ownership to the land lapsed if it was not worked for three
consecutive years (mahlul);

*Government forfeiture of land remaining uncultivated for three
years (without a legally acceptable reason), which would then be offered
for re-sale by public auction;

*Non-Ottoman subjects were permitted to purchase land in their own
names which, prior to the legislation, could only be done through an
Ottoman nominee or with special permission of the Sultan.

oEffect
of the Legislation on the Fellah

The
implementation of the legislation had serious consequences for the Arab fellahin.

*It
put the fellahin under economic pressure to sell their land
holdings, especially the now distributed musha shares, to urban
interests or non-resident effendi landlords in order to discharge
their pre-existing indebtedness and to reduce the risk of uncertainties in
agricultural yields.
The landlords in question, after consolidating their
holdings into larger parcels, would subsequently sell them at highly
inflated prices to Jewish development companies and individuals at
considerable profit. Such was the situation that, by 1859, British born
Lawrence Oliphant was able to report that almost every acre of the Plain
of Esdraelon was under intense cultivation and the nomadic Bedouin
presence all but eliminated, owing
to the commercial activities of the new
landlords, who charged exorbitant rents, payable in hard cash under
penalty of instant eviction;

*Although
land title registration enabled there to be a clear separation between the
ownership of land from its occupancy, the registration itself
was
accompanied by the payment high fees and additional tax valuations. Fellahin
therefore preferred to have the ownership of their lands (including
the newly redistributed musha) registered formally in the name of
urban notables while they continued to cultivate the land in a
share-cropping arrangement as previously.

*Land registration also enabled the Ottoman officials to identify
those eligible for compulsory military service. Fellahin, forcibly
taken into the Ottoman army and away from their lands for more than three
years, often found on their return that their land was now
"owned" by another.

*The separation of legal title from the rights of occupancy enabled
absentee effendi landlords to threaten with eviction the Arab fellah who
worked the land if he failed to pay his rent, and enabled the landlord to
sell the property over his head to would be Jewish purchasers. The Arab
fellah naturally felt resentment against the Jew rather than against the
effendi because, prior to the legislation, there was hardly any market for
land, and if a fellah failed to pay his rent, the landlord really had no
option but to permit the fellah to remain in occupation and allow the
latter’s indebtedness to increase.

As
a consequence of these reforms, the Arab fellah in
Palestine
became inexorably dependent upon those who would provide him with
temporary
relief from economic hardship, and yet were, at the same time,
the main cause of his situation. Ultimately, by necessity, he forfeited
individual control over his own life and livelihood to others:

The
Ottoman reform movement strengthened and benefited a relatively small,
urban, landowning elite of no more than several thousand out of a
population of more than half a million. Through the dependency of the
patron-client relationships that evolved, landowning interests accrued
local political prestige and influence, ensured themselves access to the
accumulation and disposal of land, and used land as a commodity to obtain
capital for maintaining their comfortable lifestyle. (Stein)

*Government
Sales of State Lands Ultimately Purchased by Jews

Registration
of land ownership, as distinct from its occupancy, also encouraged the
sale of government owned land to large scale Arab land speculators such as
Alfred Sursoq of
Beirut
who purchased some 200,000 dunams at a suspiciously low price. The
speculators were prepared subsequently to re-sell their interests at
greatly inflated prices to Jewish land development companies. Such was the
situation that by the end of the Ottoman period only 144 extensive
landowners owned 3.1 million dunams (
1 acre
= 4.047 dunams). (Kark)

iii.
Socio-Economic Consequences of the Land Reform

Thus,
what started as an attempt by the Ottomans to bring about land reform as
one of the means to ease their debt burden, ended with the abandonment by
many Palestinian peasants of their agricultural occupations and their
gravitation to nearby urban centres. While not yet 'political refugees,'
because they still remained in their patrimony, nevertheless in the
decades before the 1947 UN partition resolution, many Palestinians were
already disenfranchised by their own leadership and then displaced from
villages and from lands which they had either regularly or periodically
worked.

The
sale of land and the movement of the peasant population to the towns
resulted in the fellah’s loss of his traditional livelihood. It
created economic friction and an ever widening cultural gap between
himself and the urban Palestinian population. To this was added social and
economic unrest felt from an increasing non-Muslim presence in the Land.

Although
the legislation had the effect of enabling Jews to purchase land directly
and occupy legally in their own names, the implementation of the law
encountered regional opposition, forcing its suspension by the Ottoman
central government.

This
notwithstanding, continual foreign consular pressure coerced the Porte to
remove the suspension and to permit Jewish purchasers to take advantage of
the legislation when the occasion arose - as it did later in the 1880’s.

d.
German ‘aid’ extended to support, maintain and modernise the Ottoman
Government

As
part of the Porte’s efforts in extracting itself from its weak financial
and political situation, it turned to
Germany
for assistance. She responded by making investment in transportation -
communication infrastructure and transferring military and civilian
administrative know-how to the Ottoman government. It naturally brought
with it an extension of Germanic hegemony, trade links in the Middle East
and military dependence on and strategic subordination to
Germany
’s political interests.

In
particular,
Germany
financed and constructed a railway intended to run from
Berlin
to
Baghdad
, with an extension of the Hejaz branch from
Damascus
to Ma’an
and thence to
Medina
- deep into the heart of the
Arabian Peninsula
. The new railway links were to be used to develop Ottoman internal
communications, the transportation of grain, collection of taxes, military
conscription and troop movement.

This last purpose was to become of crucial strategic value to
Germany
in the coming 1914-1918 World War. It converted the Hejaz into a strategic
military asset; the numerous inlets along the peninsula provided German
submarines with safe havens and opportunities to attack and sink Allied
shipping en route to the Gulf and to India. Any German expansion eastwards towards would endanger British oil
interests in the region, as well as undermine British commercial and
strategic interests in the Suez Canal and unhindered access to Indian
subcontinent and the Far East.

The
German supplied organisational know-how for the restructuring and training
of the Ottoman military machine also was to raise British fears. These
brought repercussions in World War I when the indigenous Hashemites of the
peninsula were faced with the choice of supporting the Central Powers (Germany,
Austro-Hungary and the Ottomans) against the Western Allies. As will be
shown later, Hussein, King of Hejaz succeeded in extracting from
Britain
the latter’s recognition of a
Hashemite sphere of influence
extending well beyond the Hejaz: establishing the Hashemite kingdoms of
Iraq
and Transjordan, as well as asserting a claim to the territory west of the
Jordan River
. This was, of course, to have a direct impact on Jewish aspirations to
establish a homeland in
Palestine
.

In
civilian matters, the Porte attempted to restructure its governmental
organisation in accordance with Weberian concepts of industrial
specialisation and governmental bureaucratic organisation; abandoning
government traditionally based of nepotism and the sale of offices to the
highest bidder and to replace it with one founded on meritocracy and
specialisation as the bedrock for hierarchical authority.

As
will be shown in Section 4 next following, this impacted on the loci of
Arab centres of political power in
Palestine
. Ultimately, Chapters V and VI will show how these changes influenced in
turn both the effendi and the fellah in their respective
relationship with the Jewish immigrants and their supporting organisations
as well as with the British military and civilian governments after World
War I.

Also
not to be overlooked was
Germany
’s political support of Theodore Herzl in his attempts to obtain a
Charter from the Sultan for the establishment of a Jewish Homeland in
Palestine
. Far from being altruistic, such support was intended to achieve two
objectives: (i) to establish in the eastern Mediterranean the potential
for a political entity friendly to German interests and (ii) as a means
for ridding
Germany
of its Jews. This subject is also examined more closely in
Chapter V.

4.
Changes in the Loci of Arab Elite Power Bases: From the Land to the
Towns and the Metropolis

Traditionally
internal power and patronage of the Arab elites was traditionally centred
in the local village and relied upon land ownership. External factors –
particularly the financial predicament in which the Porte’s found itself
in the latter half of the nineteenth century were to change this.

To
manage its heavy public debt burden more efficiently, the Porte attempted
to centralise and assert greater administrative control over the
population and territory under its jurisdiction. The Young Turks, after
their revolution against the rule of Sultan Abdulhamit II in 1908,
propelled this movement and tendency towards the centralisation of power
with greater enthusiasm.

Prior
to World War I The Ottoman administrative structure placed
Palestine
in the regional Wilayet (Wali) of
Beirut
and the independent Sajak of Jerusalem. The wilayet themselves were
subdivided into administrative subunits- sanjaq – which were further
subdivided into local qaza . The local qaza of
Palestine
consisted of Acre,
Haifa
,
Nazareth
, Sefad, Tiberius, Jenin, Tulkarm,
Beersheba
,
Gaza
,
Hebron
,
Jaffa
and
Jerusalem
. As will become apparent in Chapter V, the appellation of administrative
wilayet within which
Palestine
lay became a central issue in the Hussein-McMahon correspondence over the
alleged conflicting promises
Britain
gave to the Jews and to the Arabs over the disposition of
Palestine
following World War I.
Kenneth.W. Stein, The Land Question in Palestine 1917-1939, University of
North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1984, (hereinafter Stein)
p 9

If
the Ottomans were to extract themselves from their economic plight and
dependency on external influences, their government re-organisation now
demanded a more highly trained and centralised bureaucracy. However, since
it was hard to recruit qualified candidates, the reforms which the Porte
wanted to institute failed to be realised for the most part. Instead, the
bureaucratic structure which they established created many new official
positions. These presented elites with opportunities to serve on local
councils, committees, boards and commissions, often holding more than one
administrative position at the same time and over an extended period, as
exemplified in sanjaqs of Acre and
Nablus
.

The
administrative reorganisation coupled the exploitation of the land reform
legislation – discussed earlier in Section 3.c.ii - permitted the elites
to accumulate both property and power and enabled them to place their
tribal kinsmen at pivotal points in the administrative structure. The qaza
level of administration required numerous civil servants to support the
local councils, tax and finance commissions, courts of first instance,
agricultural and commercial committees, chambers of commerce, education
committees, land registry, military transportation commissions, telegraph
and postal services and the local police. The appointed incumbents of the
official positions and their supportive staff, each in his own sphere and
in the exercise of his authority, were thus enabled to generate
considerable ‘emoluments,” and advancement in social status. (see Stein
pp 7-8)

As a consequence, small town patrons who previously had wielded power and
garnered their wealth based on land holdings, now saw the larger urban
centres as the arenas in which to operate for their own advancement and
that of their kinsmen. Accordingly, Arab elites migrated from the villages
to the larger towns and from the latter to
Istanbul
,
Damascus
and
Beirut
directing their attentions and efforts to wider horizons.

This
shift in the locus and system of patronage from that based on local land
ownership left the fellah under the control of a lower status kinsman or
at the mercy of an indifferent agent, and bereft of his traditional patron
to whom he could turn in times of trouble. Consequently, when Jewish
settlements began to appear, it naturally created tension between Jews and
Arabs, as one group intentionally or otherwise interfered with the land
resources claimed by the other. Cultural and language barriers between the
two probably exacerbated the issues of contention.

5. External Responses to
Ottoman Internal Changes

One
of the most significant changes in Ottoman internal policy which impacted
on foreign interests generally and sectarian concerns in particular (both
Christian and Jewish), related to the acquisition of land in Eretz Yisrael-
Palestine.

As explained earlier the sale of land to Christians and Jews under 1858
Ottoman land reformation legislation was generated not by a new liberalism
per se. On the contrary, the internal economic exigencies associated with
the costs of the Ottoman centralisation of its public administration and
discharging its foreign indebtedness made the Porte more vulnerable to
foreign influence, brought to bear by respective foreign consuls.

a.Christian
Land Acquisitions.

Events
in
Europe
in the latter half of the nineteenth century and first two decades of the
twentieth brought a degree of Christian interest in developing their holy
sites.
The objective of these acquisitions was to gain and maintain
control over distinctive and separate Christian holy places in
Palestine
and to establish religious institutions.

For the Christians, these purchases were motivated by missionary,
humanitarian, philanthropic, social and political objectives. Other,
private, individual investors were also encouraged by the Ottoman
government to acquire and develop land, especially if they surrendered
their European citizenship and assumed that of the Ottomans.

France
gave its support to the Roman Catholic acquisition in
Nazareth
(and to the Maronite Christians),
Russia
supported the Eastern Church in
Jerusalem
and
Germany
supported the Templar settlements in
Jerusalem
and
Haifa
.
Britain
extended its protection to the Anglicans and also to the Jews.

According
to Professor Kark, the churches and the missions were the most active land
purchasers among the Christians in the second half of the nineteenth
century. Prominent among them were the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, Roman
Catholics, Armenians, Anglicans, German Evangelist Community and smaller
churches, including Ethiopians, Copts, and Greek Catholics. In the
aggregate, the Christian Churches acquired both directly and indirectly
through Ottoman
nominees extensive urban property interests in and around
Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Haifa, Beit Jalla, Acre and large rural
holdings in areas that were sparsely populated, such as the Coastal Plain,
Jezreel Valley, Galilee, Beit Shaan, and Jordan Valley. This activity
provided a purchasable (fluid) inventory of
relatively empty and
inexpensive lands. (Kark p. 362).

Kark
also makes particular reference to The Temple Society founded in
Germany
during the mid-nineteenth century, whose members believed in the
importance
of settling in
Palestine
. It established centres in
Haifa
,
Jaffa
and
Jerusalem
, as well as a number of small villages. On the eve of World War I, the
Society’s population in the cities amounted to some 1,400 persons, in
addition to 624 persons in the villages (Kark p.365)

Initiatives by private investors in land development were also
forthcoming from European entrepreneurs, amongst whom were Emil Bergheim,
a banker who established a farm near Tel Gezer managed on European
principles and equipped with modern machinery, Swiss-born Johannes
Frutinger – both of whom were German subjects, and British-born Lawrence
Oliphant.

In
addition to establishing their own religious institutions, a number of
influential Christians writers, notably Alexander Keith of the Church
of Scotland, writing in 1843,English social reformer, Lord
Shaftsbury, in his 1853 correspondence with Foreign Minister, Lord
Palmerston, and William Eugene Blackstone, an American Christian, writing
in 1881 on his return to the United States after a visit to the area, saw
for themselves the extent of human habitation in Palestine or, more
accurately, the relative absence of it, and advocated the restoration of a
Jewish population to Palestine as an essential part of their respective
belief systems.

b.Religious
Jewish Land Acquisition

i.
Expansion of Existing Urban Settlement.

Religiously
motivated Jewish migration from Europe (and also from
Yemen
) in anticipation of the coming of the messianic millennium succeeded in
encouraging only a very limited Jewish migration to
Palestine
.

The faith of religious Jews in
Palestine
was sorely tested by political-sectarian violence and by natural and human
disasters.

Politically,
between 1831-1841, Muslim authorities and the local Arab population
encouraged Arab fellahin to rebel against the rule of Egyptian Muhammed
Ali’s son, Ibrahim Pasha, during his occupation of
Palestine
. In the process, they rampaged against the Jews of Safed and other towns,
looting their property; destroying their homes; desecrating their
synagogues and study-houses; raping, beating and, in many cases, killing
Jews.

In
1837 an earthquake killed more than two thousand Jews in the
Galilee
; the Messiah failed to appear in 1840, contrary to the predictions of the
Kabalists; and plagues raged throughout the region.

Despite
these setbacks, Jewish religiously motivated urban migration continued to
grow but at a low rate. It must be borne in mind that the religious Jewish
urban communities were not self-sustaining. Their male population did not
engage in agriculture, manufacturing or commerce, but were, in the main,
committed to the performance of religious precepts, the study of Jewish
religious texts and the philosophic evolution of religious thought
(including Kabbalah). It was the Jewish woman who, in addition to caring
for their husbands and households, engaged in ‘trade’ and marketing.
The communities relied upon the distribution (‘halukah’)
of financial donations sent voluntarily by Jewish communities in the
diaspora or collected by Jewish emissaries sent from
Palestine
for that purpose.

In
1855, English missionary W.H. Bartlett records in his book, ‘Jerusalem
Revisited,’ that the Jewish community in
Jerusalem
numbered over 11,000. James Finn, the second British consul in
Jerusalem
, confirms this fact in his book Stirring Times, published in 1878.
Other writers, notably, Mary Elisa, Andrew Bonar and W.F. Lynch, confirm
in their respective books and reports during the 1840-1860’s an
increased Jewish immigration and active Jewish communities and
institutions in
Haifa
,
Nablus
and
Jaffa
, respectively. (see Behat)

Notwithstanding
the danger to life and limb from Bedouin raids, pillage and general
banditry in the region, Jewish residents of the Old City of Jerusalem were
compelled, by reasons of overcrowding and insanitary conditions prevailing
there, to seek the aid of Sir Moses Montefiore in establishing Jewish
urban
settlement outside the walls of the City.

Montefiore
had already received a firman from the Sultan allowing for the
reconstruction of a synagogue in the
Old
City
. In the process he took the opportunity of purchasing a tract of land to
the west of the city as the site for almshouses, Mishkenot Sha’ananim,
for
Jerusalem
’s Jewish population overflow. In 1859, however, implementation of the
project was suspended under orders of the local Ottoman authorities, who
were no longer willing to
classify it as a business or trade or even to
consider it as philanthropy (which would have been permissible). It took a
year of considerable effort to persuade Fuad Pasha, the Ottoman Foreign
Minister, to grant Sir Moses an ‘exceptional permission’ to proceed
with the construction of housing (which without the
special permission
would have been prohibited) for twenty families. The project was completed
and dedicated in 1861. (Friedman, 1977, p. 36)

The
continuing growth of the Jewish urban population in Eretz Yisrael put
pressure on the community to create a second urban settlement outside Jerusalem’s walls. In 1880, Mea Shearim was established by a building society
comprising 100 shareholders, who pooled their resources to acquire a tract
of land a little farther away from Mishkenot Sha’ananim. Constructed by
both Jewish and non-Jewish workers, 100 apartments were ready for
occupancy by October 1880. Development continued, such that, by the turn
of the century, the suburb had 300 houses, a flour mill and a bakery.

However,
the existing Jewish population could barely sustain itself – let alone
expand - being downtrodden, poverty stricken and lacking local resources.
Support - financial, human and spiritual - had to come from the European
Jewish Diaspora. But even this was not achieved without difficulty.

*Indeed one of the main fears lying in the hearts of the existing
Jewish urban settlements was that the haluka on which they relied
would be reduced if demands for other purposes were made on Jewish
philanthropists in the Diaspora. It was this fear that led a number
religious Jews to oppose the settlement in Eretz Yisrael of poverty
stricken Jewish migrants fleeing from East-European anti-Semitism.

*It must also be remembered that, in general, the Ottoman
authorities were opposed to any settlement in
Palestine
by persons who claimed foreign consular protection. Even individual Jews
who were born in the Empire and inherited property but claimed to be under
foreign jurisdiction were told that unless they renounced their consular
protection their title deeds would be invalidated.

ii.
Early Attempts at Establishing Jewish Agricultural Settlement

During
the second half of the nineteenth century, there were also attempts at
establishing a Jewish agricultural settlement. In
1859 a
Baghdadi Jew, Shaul Yehuda, with the aid of British Consul James Finn,
purchased farmland on the outskirts of
Jerusalem
in Motza, from the nearby Arab village
of
Colonia, for agricultural and industrial purposes (a tile factory).
Unfortunately, legal complications prevented the construction of the
settlement for some considerable time, although a travellers’ inn was
established at the site in 1871.

While
rural settlement close to Jerusalem may have been blocked for the time
being, as was earlier noted in Chapter the Jewish messianic impetus
to bring about a Jewish return to agricultural work still continued.(see
Arie Morgenstern, Dispersion and Longing for Zion 1240-
1840 inAjure, 2002, Winter Issue, Shalem Center, Jerusalem,
(hereinafter ‘Morgenstern’ http://www.azure.org.il/article.php?id=264
)

Although
the Jewish migration to
Palestine
grew out of the messianic dream, it was an obscure orthodox Sephardi
rabbi, Rabbi Judah Alkelai from
Belgrade, who began to promote the necessity for establishing Jewish agricultural
settlements in
Palestine
as a prelude to the Redemption. By the 1870’s he
succeeded in
attracting only a small group of followers to settle together with him in
Palestine
, before his death in 1878, but his extensive writing stirred others to
consider doing likewise.

Contemporaneously,
other rabbinical figures in
Poland
with substantial followings, such as Rabbis Zvi Hirsh Kalischer and
Eliyahu Guttmacher, believed that the Jewish people would be redeemed only
after they first returned to the
land
of
Israel
, worked the land and observed the commandments relating to the land.
Instead of waiting passively for the Messiah, redemption could be achieved
by natural means - self help. Jews should purchase land in
Palestine
, establish agricultural settlements and send poor Jews from Europe to be
farmers, so as to colonize
Palestine
without delay.

Only
when many pious and learned Jews volunteered to live in
Jerusalem
, Kalischer explained, would the Creator hearken to their prayers and
speed the
Day of Redemption. Prayers would not suffice. Kalischer urged
the formation of a society of rich Jews to undertake the colonization of
Zion; settlement by Jews of all backgrounds on the soil of the Holy Land; the
training of young Jews in self-defence; and the establishment of an
agricultural school in the
Land
of
Israel
where Jews might learn farming and other practical subjects. Far from
undermining the study of the Torah (the first five books of the Bible),
"the policy we propose will add dignity to the Torah .... "

(Howard
M. Sachar A History of
Israel
From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, Alfred A. Knopf, 2nd ed. New
York 2003 (Sachar- History ) pp.7-8

To
implement their ideas, Guttmacher and Kalischer made appeals to European
Jewry to raise money for Jewish settlement in
Palestine
and participated in a conference in Thorn (
Torun
,
Western Poland
) in 1860. This laid the groundwork for the establishment of the Society
for the Settlement of the Land
of
Israel.

However,
Jewish religious efforts to return to Eretz Yisrael in significant numbers
had to await the occurrence of East European (Rumanian and Russian)
Anti-Semitic Violenceand the failure of Western European secular
‘Haskala’ (Enlightenment) movements to eliminate Anti-Semitism in
order to produce a combined Jewish religious and secular response
expressed in practical, cultural and political Zionism.